Analogue Pocket announced; can play a variety of handheld systems' games through FPGA

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Analogue is a company that has been taking retro video game consoles, and adapting them to use in the modern day, by providing a system that can play oldschool 90's game cartridges in 1080p, without any emulation. Previously, they've created the Analogue Mega Sg and the Super NT, "perfected" variations of the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo, respectively. Now, Analogue is taking on a new front: handheld gaming, with the announcement of the Analogue Pocket. This new system will play nearly any handheld game you can throw at it, from Game Boy, to Color, to Advanced, or even Game Gear, Atari Lynx, and Neo Geo Pocket Color; over 2,780 different games are compatible through two FPGA chips.

The Pocket will feature a 3.5" screen in a case similar to that of a Game Boy Color. The LCD has a resolution of 1600x1440, and offfers a ppi of 615. It will also have a function for those who wish to create music using game's soundfonts through a built-in synthesizer called Nanoloop.

Addtionally, there will also be a dock sold seperately, which can allow you to place the Analogue Pocket onto it, and play your games on a TV through HDMI, much like the Nintendo Switch.

Analogue's Pocket will launch sometime next year, for $199.99.

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I was waiting for the email from them today - it will be an instant buy for me and I personally never do instant buys.

I hope this gets 'jailbroken' like their other stuff :)
Well they are opening it, so it has a second fpga for homebrew n stuff, you could probably run additional cores on that.


its cool but defintly overpriced
I'm just curious, what's a proper price for this if $200 is over priced? Like, Yeah for what it is, you can get a Gba for $40 on amazon and play Gba games on that.
It's a Niche product for sure, but it's a niche people have. I've been wanting to play my Gba games, but I'm getting tired of a non backlight screen (which getting one is like $40 to $60), And the AA batteries are a slight hassle.
I personally kinda want one, $200 isn't too much, because USB-C Implementation costs alot, custom FPGAs also cost a lot (just developing on them costs shits ton of money), 1080p screen is also really neat. Accuracy isn't needed, but it sure is a plus. I don't know if I'll ever use tv output(I barely use it for my switch as is), but it's a nice feature to have. It can also work with actual Gba's due to having a link port.

I personally think $200 is a good price, having actually developing hardware, and buying high quality parts even for something just for GBA emulation does cost alot
 
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If the Super NT and Mini NT are anything to go by, a jailbroken firmware could be released that allows roms to be running off the SD card.
That would be a reason for me to think about the device. As long as this does not happen, not interested. If I buy a device for this price, then I want a few basic features like ROM loading and a dumping.
 

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now that I can sit down to read the whole thing I noticed they also are going to support gba, lynx and game gear

@FAST6191 don't be deceived by the game gear resolution, the screen of that system is 4:3 (or close to it).
so if they really want to recreate the system as accurately as they claim, then they need to account for that.

if we whip out the calculator then...
(144/3)*4 = 192
192*8 = 1536

not a bad number, the black bars would be minimal.
 
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This looks similar to the PGS kickstarter. The PGS ended up being fake and a scam.

I sincerely hope this project does not have the same fate.
 

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I would most likely get this if there were cores released for all common consoles from the 8-bit and 16-bit era as well. Otherwise pass.
 
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So it's an unfoldable GBA SP minus the link port for twice the launch price of the GBA.

Will it support color palettes for GB games? And is there SGB support?
 
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Ah, didn't see that, it's camouflaged on the black model photos.

Still, is there a reason to buy one over an SP?

I see there's no mention of the infra-red port, so unfortunately there's still no all in one solution for full GBA and GBC compatablity.

Apparently the GBA does have infra red headers, so if someone can figure out where to solder one to, I'll happily mod my GBA.
 
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My eyes suck and I need a bigger, clearer screen. Love the GBA library but there is no way I can play it on original hardware, 3DS injects run well but the scaling is terrible. This is the only solution so far that pairs running like real hardware with a great display.

Once you add in a decent flashcart for your GBA the price isn't quite as different anymore. Apparently this does have an SD slot so I assume it will be hacked in short order. Hell they are even inviting devs to develop for the FPGA here so we are going to see additional systems down the road too. (wonderswan?)
 
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"No emulation" lol good one.
It's not emulation in the sense that something like mGBA is, which is what's probably meant by that statement. Instead, the FPGA would be programmed to exactly (or as near as possible) copy the hardware and functions of the machine(s) they base it on. It's more or less a hardware clone that doesn't rely on software emulation to copy the functionality of the consoles it plays. You could make the argument that an FPGA is a kind of emulation, but it's not the kind we think of when we think of game emulators.
 

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Then use the good ones and avoid chinese devices??
And is not like fpga solutions aren't emulation.
Fpga emulate through hardware rather than software.

It's still more accurate than most other emulators. And it's not really emulation but simulation.
What are the "good ones" that don't cost a fortune?
 
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It's interesting that there's a company making such a high-quality retro device. That thing looks slick (and solid), and making a custom chip to run all of those games without emulation certainly shows dedication to creating a high-quality option. The upscaling is probably way overkill for most of those games, though I say that on conjecture, being too young to have played any.

One thing that makes games great is when they are made to look great on the technology of the time.
 

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It's still more accurate than most other emulators. And it's not really emulation but simulation.
What are the "good ones" that don't cost a fortune?
Oh, I was talking about using good emulators. I'm not in the know of those devices.
But one that looks promising that popped up recently is the retro game 350. Is quite powerful for the price but don't know which specific emulators run and is still chinese though.

You are right about fpga. I just wanted to raise awareness about the fact that the whole "not emulation" is false.
 
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